Image: A street in St. Martin after Hurricane Irma. Residents spoke of a disintegration in law and order as survivors struggled in the face of severe food and water shortages. Credit Martin Bureau/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
nytimes.com - Azam Ahmed and Kirk Semple - September 10th 2017
At dawn, people began to gather, quietly planning for survival after Hurricane Irma.
They started with the grocery stores, scavenging what they needed for sustenance: water, crackers, fruit.
But by nightfall on Thursday, what had been a search for food took a more menacing turn, as groups of people, some of them armed, swooped in and took whatever of value was left: electronics, appliances and vehicles.
This satellite photograph depicts the wildfire raging in Greenland, as seen from space last week. - NASA Earth Observatory
phys.org - August 14, 2017
Police in Greenland warned people to stay away from western areas of the island as wildfires scorched swathes of scrubland . . .
. . . Denmark's meteorological service BMI said the island registered its hottest-ever temperature of 24.8 degrees (77 Fahrenheit) on August 10.
Last year was Greenland's hottest on record.
The Danish territory has lost about 4,000 gigatons of ice since 1995, British researchers said in June, making ice melt on the huge island the biggest single contributor to rising sea levels.
The records highlighted in the "State of the Climate in 2016" report from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration sound ominous.
• Global land surface temperatures last year were highest in 137 years of record keeping.
• Sea surface temperatures were also at their highest.
• Sea levels were at record highs in the 24 years that satellite record keeping has been used.
• Greenhouse gas marks rose faster than any year and carbon dioxide readings were above a 400 parts per million average for the year for the first time.
On June 15, 2016 Renewable Energy Long Island, along with a number of cosponsors, organized the South Fork Clean Energy Forum, to discuss with community leaders how to build a smarter, more affordable, more resilient energy system for the South Fork of Long Island. At the forum, experts presented exciting new plans to make the South Fork a leader in clean energy.
The South Fork Clean Energy Forum was the first time the public was able to get an in-depth look at the various building blocks and proposals for a new energy system for the South Fork. It was also the first energy forum ever co-sponsored by both towns, and the first one to be broadcast in both towns.
The electric utility sector is broken – but the transformation we need will be virtually impossible so long as a handful of wealthy elites are calling the shots
Utilities companies have their sights on ending net-metering: your ability to sell excess power at market rates. Photograph: Rex
theguardian.com - by Kate Aronoff - August 1, 2017
A new report from the US-based Energy and Policy Institute last week found that investor-owned utilities have known about climate change for nearly 50 years – and done everything in their power to stop governments from doing anything about it.
From their commitment to toxic fuels to their corrosive influence on our democracy to their attempts to price-gouge ratepayers, it’s long past time to bring the reign of privately-owned electric utilities to an end.
Plans follow French commitment to take polluting vehicles off the road owing to effect of poor air quality on people’s health
Ministers believe poor air quality poses largest environmental risk to public health in UK. Photograph: Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images
theguardian.com - Anushka Asthana and Matthew Taylor - July 25, 2017
Britain is to ban all new petrol and diesel cars and vans from 2040 amid fears that rising levels of nitrogen oxide pose a major risk to public health.
The commitment, which follows a similar pledge in France, is part of the government’s much-anticipated clean air plan, which has been at the heart of a protracted high court legal battle.
The government warned that the move, which will also take in hybrid vehicles, was needed because of the unnecessary and avoidable impact that poor air quality was having on people’s health.
Risks to the electric grid due to severe weather, natural catastrophes and climate change can cause losses in the billions of dollars, and while threats make our energy future more uncertain there is a role for risk transfer and potentially the capital markets in helping to stave off economic disruption.
A new report published by reinsurance firm Swiss Re but authored by students at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) explains that the electric grid is among the most important pieces of our critical infrastructure, but is also one of the most exposed to natural disasters, weather and climate related threats.
California companies are generating so much solar power that firms in other states are getting paid to take it.
The state has been forced into the arrangement to "avoid overloading its own power lines", according to the Los Angeles Times.
The situation doesn't necessarily mean we are "throwing money away", says economist Severin Borenstein, a professor at UC Berkeley's Haas School of Business.
"But it probably is an indication that there are some serious problems in the way we're running the grid and the way we're making investment decisions."
For the past several years, scientists have been trying to get people to wake up to the dangers that lie ahead in rising seas due to climate change. A comprehensive list now names hundreds of US cities, large and small, that may not make it through the next 20, 50 or 80 years due to sea level rise . . .
. . . If you live along the coast, your city could be one of them -- meaning you could be part of the last generation to call it home.
"This research hones in on exactly how sea level rise is hitting us first. The number of people experiencing chronic floods will grow much more quickly than sea level itself," Benjamin Strauss, Vice President for Sea Level and Climate Impacts at Climate Central said in reaction to this study.
User-Friendly Guide Reveals Safe Levels Set by Scientists, Not Regulators
